In today's world of vast computing technology, many technology users are concerned with protecting the integrity and reliability of their virtual machines. In an effort to address this concern, some users may utilize a backup and restore technology to back up their virtual machines. For example, a conventional backup and restore technology may capture a full backup image of a virtual machine. In this example, the conventional backup and restore technology may later capture an incremental backup image that includes only those data blocks that have changed within the virtual machine since the full backup image. The conventional backup and restore technology may then be able to use the incremental backup image in conjunction with the full backup image to create a synthetic backup image that includes all of the data blocks located within the virtual machine at the later point in time.
Unfortunately, while conventional backup and restore technologies may be able to use an incremental backup image in conjunction with a full backup image to create a synthetic backup image, such backup and restore technologies may suffer from one or more shortcomings and/or inefficiencies. For example, a conventional backup and restore technology may be unable to create a synthetic backup image that includes only the data currently used by the virtual machine. In another example, the conventional backup and restore technology may need to mount and index one or more virtual disks of the synthetic backup image in order to complete the synthesis process.
As such, the instant disclosure identifies a need for additional and improved systems and methods for creating optimized synthetic backup images.